Sometimes the words of our forebears in the faith can speak to us with a luminous clarity across the centuries. St. Athanasius was Patriarch of Alexandria and a leading figure in the defence of Christian orthodoxy during the fourth century. Here is one of the images he uses to convey the mystery of the incarnation, of God coming among us:

You know what happens when a portrait that has been painted on a panel becomes obliterated through external stains. The artist does not throw away the panel, but the subject of the portrait has to come and sit for it again, and then the likeness is re-drawn on the same material. Even so was it with the All-holy Son of God. He, the Image of the Father, came and dwelt in our midst, in order that he might renew humankind, made after himself, and seek out his lost sheep….
Athanasius, On the Incarnation

As we prepare once again to celebrate Christmas, Athanasius's image encourages us to reflect on the stains that continue to disfigure our world, stains ingrained by persistent human sinfulness, personal and structural, stains that are ineradicable unless we accept into our hearts and lives the living and All-holy Son of God who comes to us as the child of Bethlehem.

George MacLeod, the founder of the Iona Community, wrote that 'we are to be to others what Christ has become for us.' By coming to us as a vulnerable infant, perhaps God is teaching us that it is by recognising our own vulnerability that we can best serve others and so play our part in dissolving the stains that so disfigure the canvas of God's Creation.